A Tale of Two Johnsons

My old friends at The Spectator have a meditation on Britain's nightmare capital by Rod Liddle. It has an arresting opening:

London, city of the damned. City of incendiary tower blocks, jihadi mentals trying to slit your throat, yokels from Somerset up for the day to enjoy a spot of ramming Muslims in a white van. City of Thornberry, Abbott and Corbyn. City of Boris. City of anti-Semitic marches to commemorate Al Quds. City of Isis flags and where, in most boroughs, white British people are a largely resentful minority. City of vacuous liberal platitudes â€” we all stand together, not in my name. Why would you live there? I would rather live in Gaza, just about. If you are not tired of London by now then you are surely tired of life.

That last line is a reference to Samuel Johnson, who said if a man is tired of London he's tired of life. If you're wondering why I'm spelling it out so plonkingly, well, one of the mildly exhausting aspects of contemporary life is the unviability of lightly worn allusion in the age of the Internet. The other day I mentioned en passant that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, which used to be a widely recognized line (if somewhat apocryphal) of the Duke of Wellington's. An hour later, some cocksure keyboard warrior responded that I was a total fake-news f**ktard and such a douchebag that I was apparently unaware that the Battle of Waterloo was in fact won somewhere in Belgium.

So I doubt most contemporary Londoners have heard of Samuel Johnson and, if they have, assume he's Boris Johnson's dad. I feel for the most part as Rod Liddle does about the vibrant, diverse "City of Boris". But it's the same in almost any western capital these days. You get off the train at the gare centrale, assuming you've picked a day when it isn't in lockdown over some Allahu Akbar type of eternally mystifying motive, and you walk past the soldiers with their automatic weapons, and you buy a cappuccino and slice of pizza from someone who might be a slightly corpulent Pushtun or an unusually svelte Tongan. But what's the difference? The more diverse we get, the more everything's the same. I miss the Europe of my childhood, when you could drive an hour in any direction from my mum's home town in Belgium and (in a way that for young 'uns is exciting in both the jolly and unnerving senses) be presented with entirely different cuisine, entirely different bathroom fixtures, entirely different mores. The homogeneity of multiculturalism is a complete crashing bore.

The post-colonial era left a lot of the more ambitious members of the political class at a loose end. In the old days, their grander schemes were confined to imperial outposts - moving large numbers of Indians to Fiji to serve as a middle-class civil service, etc - and the less fortunate consequences only materialized when they'd moved on. Now the imperial metropolis is itself a colony, for the greatest, most transformative experiment of all, and, when the less fortunate consequences show up, there's nowhere to move on to. Liddle makes the point that a lot of this is because modern middle-class progressives require, in essence, a slave-labor class. This is as true for America as for Europe: up-to-the-minute bien-pensant liberals who would feel queasy sauntering past Negro shoeshine boys and Pullman porters and domestic maids every day are nevertheless happy for the equivalent functions to be performed by indentured imports from Latin America and the Middle East. Indeed, if you label it as "diversity" or "multiculturalism", it becomes a virtue.

The mantle of virtue that transforms your preference for cheap Third World labor into proof of your moral superiority also obscures many other things. If you want a gloomier take than Liddle's, try Peter Smith Down Under:

The game is being lost and we don't know it because we occupy only a thin slice of passing events. We can't comprehend the big picture. But we are not akin to beings in a two-dimensional world for which up and down is unseeable. We can surely spot the portents of the evolving future. Here, very broadly, is what we know.

Muslim populations of Christian (Western) countries have grown sharply in recent decades and are continuing to grow disproportionately; both because of immigration and relatively high fertility rates. Christian populations of Muslim countries have declined sharply in recent decades and are continuing to decline sharply because of oppression. (There is a clue in there somewhere.)

Indeed. But instead we point fingers at irrelevances: The incendiary tower block is the fault of Theresa May; the yokel in the white van is due to an insufficient clampdown on free speech on social media; the jihadi mentals are the result of too few bollards on bridges... Why can't a politician of moderate temperament (the aforementioned Boris, for example, who surely knows) say, "You know, when I head to parliament each morning, I like my butterscotch-pepperoni macchiato and hummus-and-marmalade croissant served by a friendly Albanian or Uzbek as much as the next chap. The Ukrainian escorts are absolutely tip-top. Yet I can't help feeling we've lost control of our borders and we're changing everything imprudently fast, and wouldn't it be nice if we could just slow things down a bit until we're a little more on top of the situation? So we could stop having to spend billions to persuade the more excitable lads to turn themselves in to the Self-Radicalised Extremism Awareness Hotline and have more resources to, erm, invest in NHS hormonal transitioning programs and, ah, re-cladding of tower blocks, hmm?"

But that is apparently unsayable. Indeed, so much is now unsayable that most western citizens are not even aware that this is ultimately (and not too far ahead) an existential question. Peter Smith again:

It is one thing to spot the trend towards Islamic dominance; it is quite another to arrest it. In particular, tolerant societies in these politically correct times have no feasible way of countering intolerance when it is practised and preached by a minority religion ready to claim victimhood at the drop of a hat. I entertained the thought that it could, but it can't be done. And it certainly can't be done when Muslim populations become large enough to have political clout; and that isn't too large.

Muslim immigration can't be stopped. Financial support to Islamic institutions can't be withdrawn. The superiority of Western cultural and social conventions can't be actively promoted. A safe, supportive and encouraging environment can't be offered to Muslims who wish to leave behind their intolerant and violence-provoking creed.

But every cloud has a silver lining and, for Mr Smith, it's the possibility of civil war. To an optimist the glass is one-sixteenth full.

For my own part, to go back to Samuel Johnson and the Duke of Wellington, I worry about the loss of historical knowledge, and with it civilizational consciousness. The young - the ones who would fight Mr Smith's civil war - have no memory of when their societies were not like this. And, if you have no sense that things were once other than this, you cannot mourn the loss, and you're certainly unlikely to fight to retrieve it. That's why I'd rather figure out a way back to sanity that stops short of civil war. Rod Liddle's "city of the damned" is an advanced case, but we're all damned if this keeps up.

~Mark will be exploring this topic in more detail with Douglas Murray in a brand new episode of The Mark Steyn Show. The Mark Steyn Show is made possible through the support of members of The Mark Steyn Club, to whom we are very grateful.

If you're one of the many members of the Club living in London or any other city of the damned, do log in and and weigh in below. You can find more details on Premium Membership of The Mark Steyn Club here.

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68 Reader Comments

K. Kilty • Jun 25, 2017 at 13:36

"A safe, supportive and encouraging environment can't be offered to Muslims who wish to leave behind their intolerant and violence-provoking creed...."

Interesting statement. In the western U. S. we have a lot of Mormons, who have in some manner a dogmatic, and slightly severe creed. For example, they don't drink even beer, and some will not drink coffee or tea or soda. So, there is an old joke that goes like this:

Q: How do you keep a Mormon from drinking all your beer on a fishing trip?A: Take two Mormons.

Enclaves enforce conformity. There never will be the safe space needed to form common bonds and gain an appreciation of the dominant culture as long as there are large uniform enclaves. Some of this same issue contributed (or contributes, if you wish) to the dysfunction of American racial relations. Even in the 1930s social surveys indicated that a large majority of white Americans viewed Black Americans as full functional persons, but segregation produced white enclaves allowing bigots to enforce conformity--and the reverse is true also--enclaves of minorities allows extreme thinkers to enforce conformity. In fact, being kept "on the plantation" refers to an enclave of uniform progressive thinking that enforces conformity on minority communities.

We have some Muslim enclaves in the U.S., which I am not familiar enough with to draw conclusions about how they reinforce conformity; but, my experience with Muslim coworkers and friends one-on-one is that without the threat of conformity enforcement they become Americanized rather fully and quickly, and have a keen appreciation for the liberal traditions of free-speech and freedom of association. It is interesting, however, how a single Muslim friend may have a beer in a relaxed situation, but becomes quickly Muslimized again in the presence of another Muslim.

The joke about Mormons applies also to Muslims.

Michele Grzywacz • Jun 25, 2017 at 12:29

'Be Calm & Carry On' needs a rewrite for this war.

Laura Rosen Cohen Michele Grzywacz • Jun 28, 2017 at 10:12

"Never shut up and push back twice as hard."

John Saunders (UK) • Jun 24, 2017 at 09:46

Dear Mark. If you want to see and recognize the 'sameness and absurdities' of multiculturalism, you
only have to read or listen to the song in "Gilbert & Sullivan's" opera, the ' Gondoliers' where Don Alhambralectures Marco and Giuseppi (the Gondoliers) on the foolishness of treating every body the same.Quote from the opera: " There lived a king as I 've been told, in the wonder-working days of old,when hearts were twice as good as gold, And twenty times as mellow. Good temper triumphed in his face, and in his heart he found a place for all the erring human race and every wretched fellow." The last verse is particularly interesting. Quote from the opera: " That King, although no-one denies, his heart was of abnormal size, Yet he'd have acted otherwise,If he had been acuter, the erd is easily foretold, when every blessed thing you holdIs made of silver or of gold, you long for simple pewter. When you have nothing else to wear,but cloth of gold and satins rare, for cloth of gold you cease to care - Up goes the price of shoddy". In other words, what is the point of values or beliefs? Why have differences? W.S. Gilbert was a very shrewd and astute observer of theworld. I wonder what both G & S would have made of the world today? Had they written comic operas in our world, they would, probably be considered 'politically incorrect'. Interesting thought.

Quinn • Jun 24, 2017 at 08:38

"If you're wondering why I'm spelling it out so plonkingly, well, one of the mildly exhausting aspects of contemporary life is the unviability of lightly worn allusion in the age of the Internet."

Beautiful. Simply beautiful.

NavyDoc • Jun 24, 2017 at 08:37

Ray Cleveland makes the critical point. Without Western allies providing necessary logistical support in the War against the West, Islam would have a much more challenging time staging a comeback. Western progressives see in Islam a force that shares their objective...the destruction of a Western society they view as white, bigoted, colonialistic and hypermasculine. Islam (the regular 70-90% all in for Sharia and the 20-30% supporting violent jihad) views the West differently, as a collective of weak and amoral infidels. Western progressives are willing to overlook the misogyny and homosexual hate of Islam and feed the Islamic crocodile, assuming in the end, that that such uneducated pagans can be converted to the church of progressivism. These useful idiots, having no spiritual moorings themselves, fail to understand history and the power of belief in something larger than themselves and a "state". The hubris of progressives, many of whom are the same white and privileged despised by their own church of progressivism, have gained power via division and creating a technicolor dreamcoat of victim groups in order to gain, and hope to sustain power. The black lives matter, LGBTQXYZ, hyperfeminists divisions in the progressive army would alone be able to conduct a prolonged insurgency that would test the ability of the historical West, built on Judeo-Christina principles and natural law, to stand. The Islamic crocodile is the only division, based on demographics, and the hubris of the progressive church, that has the ability to secure victory for progressivism. Unfortunately it would mean the death of the west, including the progressive vision, and it is not clear to me the left would even be eaten last.

Quinn NavyDoc • Jun 24, 2017 at 11:49

Well put, NavyDoc.

I believe the homosexual and transgendered infidels would actually be the FIRST on the quite literal Islamic chopping-block.

Strange bedfellows, Islam and the Left. For some reason they still think republicans, not Islamic Supremacists, are the greatest threat to their way of life. Last time I checked, conservatives weren't throwing gays from the roof of tall buildings or not allowing women to vote, drive or go to school.

But, one or two of them refuse to bake a wedding cake every now and then, so...

Randy Stafford Quinn • Jun 24, 2017 at 21:19

If we go with the theory of some that progressivism is a religion, then we are in a time where their faith is being tested.

Christian faith is tested by bad things happening or being confronted with temptation.

The temptation a member of the progressive creed faces is noticing patterns or being tempted to maybe have bad thoughts about the limits of tolerance and generosity.

A good progressive will redouble their faith, go not into temptation by examining patterns or contrasting arguments. They must hold firm.

If some of them suffer or are killed, then that is the most crucial time for them to reaffirm the faith. You can supply your own news stories to show that phenomena. In other words, don't hold out much hope for the "a conservative is a liberal who got mugged" type conversion.

But yes, just like all the radicals in countries taken over by the commies, they'll be the first up against the wall ... or to the chopping block ... or out the window ... or an auto de fe in a cage.

Bob Randy Stafford • Jun 25, 2017 at 05:47

Yerp!

Laura Rosen Cohen NavyDoc • Jun 28, 2017 at 10:15

The left has a torrid romance with Islam for a number of reasons, first of all because it's anti-Western. But it is also out of a grudging admiration for the spiritual nature of Islam, because all humans crave a belief system, and meaning. The left is nihilistic in its articulated goals, but the human spirit is attracted to meaning and purpose. The leftists protest too much. We are getting closer to the break-up between the two and the left will come crawling back to Islam like a battered wife.

Laura Rosen Cohen Quinn • Jun 28, 2017 at 10:16

The facts are irrelevant!

Bob Randy Stafford • Jun 28, 2017 at 18:46

I've been reading this a few times...I just read it to my wife..I'm getting my head round what your saying Coz I like it!!

James M • Jun 24, 2017 at 02:09

There are a couple of rays of light, amid the terrifying Islamic darkness.

Western society, for all its vacuity and transience, offers Muslims a way of life which is less utterly hellish (for now) than the societies from which they are recent immigrants. We hear much about those who reject the West, and strap on the jihadi underwear, but not much from those who don't really believe in it, and would rather dump the whole Islam thing as a bit of a nuisance, but can't because it would break their elderly mum's heart. It seems sad to say it but maybe our very decadence has a strength to it as well as all the well rehearsed (and real) weaknesses, which are destroying our societies? If we can persuade more Jihadi Johns to become (Moham)Ed the barman, maybe the horror will not progress as we all fear. It is said that Northern Ireland became more pacific when its citizens became more interested in Volvos than violence.

Muslim women. They have a miserable time in the West, just as they do around the Muslim world, but they cannot but perceive their Western counterparts having a rather better life. Less oppressive husbands (mostly), less oppressive covering up, better chances for their kids, more money and independence, no polygamy, which is deeply resented (read Wafa Sultan on the subject). They are a very large, and very oppressed, group and Islamists fear greatly any whiff of independence for them. Perhaps we can help to empower those Muslim women who want a platform to dispute their religion or at least challenge the Wahhabists? Mark's interview with Raheel Raza is one example of how this could work. Let's have much more of the same.

The alternatives are all deeply unattractive, and I do not think we can any longer look to our own young people for help, or much chance frankly that they can even see the risk. No group in society is more enthusiastically embracing their own destruction. It's heartbreaking to see how well the Left has done its work in the world of education.

We can't undo the follies of the past, but perhaps we can change the narrative of Islam, many of whose adherents fought for the Empire only 70 years ago, and presumably saw no conflict for their faith in loyalty to British values at that time. It is our best bet of avoiding the otherwise inevitable conflict of the future.

Bob the slasha James M • Jun 25, 2017 at 06:23

Great read...funny you know..I've been reading a biography of my great uncle Lt col Robert Coveny. He was in the 42nd highlanders the black watch. They and many other units were sent by the British govt to go up the Nile to soudan and rescue Gordon. (Uncle Bob was killed along with generals earle and Eyre on the 11th Feb 1885). Interestingly they hired Canadians to pilot the whalers that made their way to Khartoum. It's a cracking read let me tell you. But I digress. At a few of the battles over the preceding years (tel el kibir for example) they purposefully engaged battalions of Muslims from India to fight the mahdist Muslims in Egypt!

Laura Rosen Cohen Bob the slasha • Jun 28, 2017 at 10:17

Hello Bob, I'd be interested in reading the book. Could you share the title with us?

P. Gao • Jun 23, 2017 at 22:30

If everyone wants to be all multicultural dainty about what to do, then we can ask Nigerians how they got rid of three million Ghanaian 'guest workers of varying qualities of legal documentation' in one week flat and they don't even share a border.

P. Gao • Jun 23, 2017 at 20:46

It funny that just two days ago we were just watching M. Mark's commentary on multiculturalism in 2007 on youtube before reading today's article - actually discussing it at the time with a new teacher who was nodding along, 'yes'yes ' watching the video.

Bob the slasha • Jun 23, 2017 at 18:25

Funny you know. Forgive me if you've heard this story before. My great great grandfather was Thomas Sutcliffe Mort. Amongst his many achievements ( you can google him) I believe his greatest was his pioneering work with ED Nicole ( a French engineer living in Sydney at the time well I suppose Sydney was apparently multi culti before they knew it), on the process of artificial refrigeration. Thomas knew of this could be achieved the world would be a better place. In Sydney in the 1850's children were dying from spoilt rotten milk. His estate /coop ( first in Australia) was producing prodigious amounts of milk cheese and other consumables. His approach to life was always through the prism of his deep Anglican faith. He spent Â£80,000 of his own money on finding a solution. They had perfected the process and built a plant at Darling harbour and one at Lithgow. ( Many animals were dying on the route from the tablelands down the perilous escarpment to Sydney). NSW fresh food and Ice Co. To celebrate the occasion he put on a banquet at Lithgow whereby all the important people of the day in Sydney were taken by trains (built in his workshops) to be fed good that had been artificially frozen 8 months before. No one knew. It was the first time in the world people had eaten artificially frozen meals. He stood up and gave a speech in which he said "the earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof. Faraday had waved his and and we have made this possible Now there is no excuse for the children of the world to go hungry!. This was 1876. The next challenge was to make it portable. So they built the machinery at his engineering workshop at balmain Mort's Dock. Many Sydney businessesmen subscribed to the venture but he was told it would never work. The first shipment of 80 tonnes of meat left Sydney for London in 1877. The equipment failed at sea and the ship returned back to Sydney. This left him very depressed and the naysayers had their day. He died on may 11 th 1878 of complications from pneumonia contracted when attending the funeral of one of his estate workers giving his jacket to the dead man's widow as it was wet and cold. His daughter wrote " all of the workers of the estate were in tears at his graveside. Even the poor blacks were reduced to tears. there mustve been 300 or more their number."
In 1879 the businessmen and working class resolved to raise a subscription to his name as he refused any memorials while he was alive. The statue was cast in Florence and stands on the corner of bridge St and Macquarie place. Near circular quay the centre of Sydney. Google it if you wish).the only privately erected statue in the city of Sydney.
They attempted a second shipment of meat in 1880 and it reached London frozen. The success was lauded in the papers of the day.None of this legacy is taught in any of the educational curriculums in Australia. When I say my surname all the old times say oh your a mort. As they all remember the history and his legacy is still alive to day in his greatest charitable act the AMP society and the large agri business Elders. Joke were it not so funny. (In case your wondering the bulk of the fortune was lost in the great crash of 1892 luckily.

Simon Brockwell Bob the slasha • Jun 23, 2017 at 21:46

The refrigeration of perishable foodstuffs pioneered by T.S.Mort and another Australian, James Harrison, had huge consequences for the world. Australia, New Zealand and Argentina became wealthy First World nations by exporting frozen meat (beef and lamb) to Europe. The resulting lower cost of meat in Europe meant far more people, urban dwellers especially, ate better. What proportion of "the poor" - non-working welfare dependents living in free state-supplied housing - in Western societies do not have a refrigerator in their homes? What proportion of the same cannot afford meat in their daily diet?

fran lavery Bob the slasha • Jun 24, 2017 at 00:04

Very cool story, Bob! I learned something new.

P. Gao fran lavery • Jun 24, 2017 at 17:16

Yes! Fascinating!

David H Dennis Bob the slasha • Jun 24, 2017 at 22:31

Fascinating story, Bob!

Okay, I'll bite: Why was it lucky that the bulk of the fortune was lost in 1892?

Bob David H Dennis • Jun 25, 2017 at 05:30

Er I'm scared of heights and it's easier at the bottom of the ladder than the top haha..aka prince harry. It was a common saying amongst Australians that "we rode on the sheep's back " as it were thanks to the wool trade Mort pioneered with Macquarie et al. Both the Murdoch's and the packers had connections back to old wool families. It's a fascinating drive through some of the old wool districts and seeing the homesteads. Those families were supplying the wool mills of Europe with the best woolstore in the world. My dad was a wool broker.

Bob David H Dennis • Jun 25, 2017 at 05:44

Of course being a tad facetious...but you know I admire the fact that rather than horde his earnings he believed that it should be put back into the community. It was said he stopped a gold crash in the 1850's as he was such a large holder of gold and refused to dump his holdings to stabilise the market. There was I believe a trend with Melbourne families to send their wealth back to the old country. Interestingly In the early 1850's he constructed the southern hemisphere largest dry dock in Balmain. (Google it and you can see the remnant of it at Mort Bay.). That structure actually shifted the centre of power from Melbourne as the colony's premier city to Sydney. It meant that now the big ships that were plying the oceans could travel the long distance to Australia and be repaired and turned around quickly. To get it constructed quickly and on time he offered workers land at balmain in addition to wages. It's also been said that the modern labour movement in Australia was formed on the Yards at Mort's Dock and balmain in the 1890's. Ironically that was once a working class suburb is now a suburb of multi million dollar homes filled with predominantly progressive left wing academics and very well paid public servants. Cheers.

Bob David H Dennis • Jun 25, 2017 at 06:36

One other interesting point about Mort's fortune. Dad told me that Around the time TS died, he believed his business interests were very spread across many geographys and asset classes. My dad believed that he may have been planning on consolidating his interests in the near future but that death took him. Dad also told me ( He died back in 1994 and he like my great uncle Bob fought in Egypt in 1942 at the battle of El alamien) that part of his reasons for shifting his thinking away from business was because he wished to embark on a grand history of the English people but from their perspective as this had never been done before. He was from Lancaster originally. So, to answer your original question, there was capital left for me to at least have some money to buy my family a modest home. And i feel very proud and humbled that the very structure I'm writing this from has a link back to a great patriotic Australian. Four generations. That's wealth preservation for you!
If you google greenoaks double Bay you can see the Gothic mansion he built for his family in 1857 -59. The church St marks he paid for and was built on land donated by him. Also google Mort's woolstore in circular quay and look at the building they demolished to make way for the amp building. Criminal! My dad tried to stop them alas!!

Bob Simon Brockwell • Jun 25, 2017 at 08:07

Very good point..

Randy Stafford • Jun 23, 2017 at 18:09

Yes, every time I see or hear somebody in the media say "as every schoolchild knows", I mutter "No, no they don't."

When I type up something for the internet, I always wonder how many links and explanations I should throw in, what I can assume the audience knows. I try not to insult by explaining yet ... well, I wonder sometimes.

As far as the solution, we are going to have to realize that our notions of tolerance and the interchangeability of all immigrants was mistaken and suicidal and accept the need for harsh action to turn the tide back. We will need to harden our hearts against the propaganda of (perhaps) well-intentioned fools and outright liars.

People will need to be sent home. Ships sunk in the Mediterranean. Aid denied. Mosques surveilled. Threats made and carried out.

The harshness will be less if Western governments accept the need to do these things.

Things will be much worse when the harshness is in private hands.

And, finally, a little quote courtesy of Jerry Pournelle: "A dark age isn't when you forget how to do something. It's when you don't even remember that it could be done."

Victor Randy Stafford • Jun 23, 2017 at 20:25

David P. Goldman has just republished an article from a year ago which explains in pretty simple terms what needs to be done (https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2017/06/03/counter-terror-lessons-from-americas-civil-war/): Muslim communities need to fear Western authorities more than they fear the Islamic terrorists living in their midst. A few thousand deportations to get on top of the problem...how many thousands of dead will be required to even begin discussing such an option?

Randy Stafford Victor • Jun 23, 2017 at 20:48

Yes, "moderate muslims" fall in five categories.

Liars who really are in favor of the House of Islam spreading.

Apathetic abstainers in the civilizational struggle who will go either way if there is some push back.

Those who want reform but don't have the courage to press for it so are useless though they might be emboldened if there is push back. That they don't freely speak tells us something about how many of their co-religionists do not share their views.

True reformers who are speaking out now. Some of them do inform on terrorists in their midst. In the UK, as we saw, the police ignore their tips. I can certainly understand why they and others figure if the authorities can't be bothered to exert themselves why should they.

The true percentage in each category is, of course, not really known.

Simon Brockwell Victor • Jun 23, 2017 at 22:27

Thanks for the link to Goldman's article. A good read.

At least a decade ago a fellow called Mark Steyn lampooned the term "lone wolf", a term ascribed by head-in-the-sand, this-has-nothing-to-do-with-Islam, MSM apologist "journalists" to any and every Muslim mass-murderer in the West, by writing that terror attack perpetrator, Mohammed Hussein, was a dues paying member of Local 1431 of the "Association of Lone Wolves". This more recently morphed into the phenomenon Goldman identifies as the "known wolf", ie the Muslim terror attack perpetrator was "known to the authorities". And now the authorities, ie the Western security and police agencies, have adopted the expression "known wolf"!

Carl • Jun 23, 2017 at 17:34

I'm reminded of a book Marcus Steynacus wrote in 425 entitled "Byzantium Alone" which proved to be correct, but only until 1453. Why isn't Constantinople on any top ten grievance lists? Now there is a city that lost its Christian population

Bob d'Pompeii. Carl • Jun 23, 2017 at 21:11

Ha ha gold..

Alkex Peck Carl • Jun 23, 2017 at 21:34

Constantinople is on my list. Constantine the Great, the founder, is a many times-over grandfather of mine. I used to want it all back, but now I'll settle for the bronze horses that were plundered from the Constantinople hippodrome in a misbegotten crusade and now held in Venice. Calling the Monuments Men. Actually, a Monuments Man, Dr. Edmund Rae, was a grad school teacher of mine. He was a remarkable instructor and person. https://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/the-heroes/the-monuments-men/rae-capt.-edwin-c.

Debra Milligan • Jun 23, 2017 at 17:09

"The more diverse we get, the more everything's the same." Reminds me of "The Incredibles" (Les Incroyables) and the theme of eliminating the Hero, as well as "when everyone is special, no one is" This film has become a July 4 viewing tradition in my household.

And from Pixar in (summer?) 2015, "Zootopia" was timely a year ahead of time for casting the Sheep Villainess whom I saw straightaway as Hillary.

The best films for adults are the kiddie ones!

JS • Jun 23, 2017 at 16:59

Mark, I read you because I get your allusions.

Alex Peck • Jun 23, 2017 at 16:23

Counter to what is often presented in these pages, everything didn't take place in Belgium. The Battle of Waterloo was fought in a London train station.

Bob the slasha Alex Peck • Jun 23, 2017 at 21:20

My great grandmother Mary was sent from Sydney to a convent for her schooling in Belgium in the 1850's. And no in case your wondering she wasn't molested and she loved it!!https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Attraction_Review-g188671-d3777382-Reviews-The_English_Convent-Bruges_West_Flanders_Province.html

Richard Ryan • Jun 23, 2017 at 16:06

"... a widely recognized line (if somewhat apocryphal) of the Duke of Wellington's."

Was it a mistake for all of us to turn our backs on the university and pursue our other professions? Had some conservative minded professors hung in there could we have made a difference? Can academe be infiltrated at this late date? And would it make a difference?

Flyover Al in CT Wm. Tomlinson • Jun 24, 2017 at 10:36

Hi Wm:

"Centesis" as in amniocentesis is a surgical puncturing of the body with a hollow needle for the extraction of fluids or tissue.

In plain English: Build the Wall; deport them all.

Wm. Tomlinson Brod • Jun 24, 2017 at 22:13

I ESPECIALLY like Islamoneurosis LOL But I was leaning on the side of what we refer to ourselves as; a phobia being and unwarranted fear ... rather, we KNOW what Islam believes and therefore our caution is reasonable.

wm Flyover Al in CT • Jun 24, 2017 at 22:17

Ah, now I see where you were going. LOL I knew the centesis, wife being a nurse.

Wm. Tomlinson Brod • Jun 24, 2017 at 22:30

It is much deeper than academia, Brod. Our founders were very clear that they believed that all of the founding of America was providential and they clearly stated that when the nation will have left God behind, it will begin to die. That began in earnest when the State began to defenestrate God in 1962. We have continued on that march and America is becoming ever more perverse in every way, not the least of which is that we have slaughtered 1 in six Americans over the last 45 years. God does not hold them guiltless who shed innocent blood. Because we are a republic, that blood is on all of our hands and that is just the beginning of our wickedness.

Duncan Laidlaw • Jun 23, 2017 at 15:27

Brilliant piece Mark. I left Paris today for a weekend at home in Aberdeen. The scene at CDG 2E was out of Africa. You wonder where you are. I have a sad sense that it really is over for the west. Not one of our so called western leaders has the guts to call a spade a spade and actually do anything about it. And we the people are neutered. It's just sad.

Simon Brockwell Duncan Laidlaw • Jun 23, 2017 at 22:53

I felt the same way arriving in San Francisco last year after a 25 year gap. The melange of people on the streets, running the shops, etc: "This looks the same as Sydney!". The only visible difference is that the States has black people. In Australia (two major cities only) one only encounters black people in the form of Christian Nigerian or Ghanian taxi drivers, who, BTW, get almost teary with gratitude when a passenger conveys an understanding that Islam is problematic. Many ask me hopefully "Do many Australians understand this?" and I have to answer honestly: "Regrettably, no". The last one I encountered turned, looked me in the eye and farewelled me with "God bless you and your family"! As a Roman Catholic who abandoned his faith at age seven, it was the only time I've ever been chuffed over someone so blessing me.

Australia and the States are young (in historical terms) immigrant nations. It must be several orders of magnitude sadder for Dutchmen, Danes, Swedes, Italians, etc born before 1960 to witness the transformation of their once culturally unique societies into "enriched" multicultural exemplars. The current push-back against Islam by the Visegrad Four nations is perfectly understandable.

Big Bobbles • Jun 23, 2017 at 15:15

I am not a wordsmith. But I love to read and learn. I look forward every day for Mr. Steyn's written words.I also appreciate the comments from the readers, For it adds expansion to Mark's writing, as well as some needed humor. So I thank you all!

Ian Lewis • Jun 23, 2017 at 15:00

I wish I could believe that this piece was too gloomy. I simply can't. Everywhere I look I see traditional, tolerant, generous ways of life being replaced by something much worse.

I wish that I thought I had answers, but I don't. I don't see any real reason for hope in modern western politicians. I can't even blame others too much. I'm 42 and childless, so I'm part of the problem.

It's coming to something awful when intelligent people are seriously considering that an all-out clash of civilisations and trying to build something better in the aftermath is the best chance for decency.

Laura Rosen Cohen Ian Lewis • Jun 28, 2017 at 10:20

Make some babies! You'll feel a lot better and far less gloomy.

Glen Flint • Jun 23, 2017 at 14:28

"The homogeneity of multiculturalism is a complete crashing bore."

Imagine how boring it will be when this is unsayable.

P. Gao • Jun 23, 2017 at 14:24

So surprised to see M. Mark talk today about the current huge problem of ignorance (absence of shared knowledge). It is true, in order to employ a metaphor or reference, the audience has to know it first. Schools used too do that, but they tossed it all out. They're sly, too. A school spent an entire week on activities from a children's book a kid with a 'chocolate touch' without ever telling the children about the ancient story the book had borrowed from - King Midas. They will go through life - books-theatre-news-movies-debates-music-discussions- missing the significance of every reference to 'the Midas touch.' Because of this, so most of an erudite discussion today goes right over their heads, they miss every point. This isn't 'stupidity' or 'dumb' it's lack of learned knowledge, but after decades of information-withholding 'education' regular people are constantly slapped about as being 'stupid.'Exactly relating to M. Mark's point of lack having to spell out every reference, just last night we were shaking the saddened heads at the naivete of the earnest U.S Army historian who wrote:"The dramatic story of the conquest of yellow fever of the urban type by Walter Reed and his associates is so well known that it is unnecessary to give further details here."That dear poor historian. So well-known? Nobody knows anything about it, but in the day, reported to the medical profession in 1901, it was an international sensation, transforming the globe.So, a big deal like that is not known amongst the general population - as if it never existed, all the information to decisively help and transform Africa in a drawer. All the books about it are actually being discarded by libraries across the country to make space for rootless empty junk like 'the chocolate touch.' We know, we have some of them - bought for 10 cents plus shipping, stamped 'discard'.See, everyone was told destroying yellow fever was 'impossible' yet it was done in a matter of weeks in Havana without any modern chemicals or vaccines. Malaria was destroyed in NE Brazil in less than a year, but it was 'impossible.' Today, the official position is 'impossible.' No really, it's stated frequently to make sure no one gets any crazy ideas or if they do, they are branded as 'crazy' so no one will listen to them.To maintain the lie, the education deliberately dropped out the history so modern people have nothing to refer to, nothing to defend a different approach, which is always violently attacked - stupid, ignorant, racist, homosapienphobic er... homosapienphile... which since no one learns even a modicum of Latin that's built into English, will be understood by the hearer/reader as something not what it is - normally a comical situation except people get bludgeoned for it -
wait a minute, these are just brute tactics, not the truth, which usually turns out to be quite amazing and excitingly fresh and invigorating. No can't have that.Therefore, the use of 'impossible' is a cynical demotivator psychological tactic to make a problem seem too huge and complicated - to keep people from acting that they can fix things, that they can stop the 'juggernaught.'The young people in uni are being coached aggressively by the staffs. They don't have knowledge, so indeed in order to speak to them effectively they need the background. See the set-up? One has 60 minutes to make a point that the audience needs a year of background to fully appreciate the point being made. Many people try to talk too fast, anxious to get it all in, but just look frantic. It has to be approached by refusing to be constrained by the artificial 'conventions.'It's tough now, but it didn't happen by accident. Therefore changing it requires the same 'it doesn't happen by accident' attitude. Understand the communication constraints, then steadily build and inform.

Referring back to Toronto debate as an excellent display of how it is always set up: the campaign of weeks of negative publicity against one side, putting the favored team in front of a huge backdrop of PRO (positive) and the denigrated team in front of the negative backdrop (CON). The snarky rather vulgar appeals to denigrate the 'visiting team' against the 'home team.' But, the carefully-orchestrated event was upended when M. Mark stood up and threw the PRO's team own backgrounds into their faces - that the audience didn't really know of course and hauled them off their aloof comfort ground platform and into real life, the everyday life the audience knew - the place where little kids are being hurt. There's anger, there's offense, but they're just little candle flickers beside the blaze of righteous anger.

Laura Rosen Cohen P. Gao • Jun 28, 2017 at 10:22

Very good observation about "impossible". I quite agree. It's a bullying tactic meant to shut down discussion and action. We should borrow that old Nike slogan "Impossible is Nothing".

PK33 • Jun 23, 2017 at 14:18

I am always astounded how people can be so blind. Then I try to have a discussion around Muslim immigration and societal impact with my family members and I'm totally gobsmacked. My sister has two daughters of high-school age. She lives in a small city and says she would not be opposed to her daughters dating a Muslim or living in a Muslim community, although that probably wouldn't happen there for a few years yet. She's coming for a visit to our (much larger) city this fall and my brother and I will be taking her on a "shopping trip for specialty spices" to a Muslim enclave where the hijab is de rijueur, the niqab is common and there is the occasional, but rare sighting of a woman in a full-on burka. We are interested to see how she reacts. We will be packing a hijab-ready scarf, just in case.

Europe will be a substantially different place in much less than 40 years, but different in what way? Since Islam seems static over the past thousand years, and Europe accommodates, it will be Islamic most likely. The decline of the non-Muslim population will continue or accelerate, just as it is doing in Muslim countries now.

JPJ • Jun 23, 2017 at 13:31

I tease my grandson that he is not angry at a decaying world, but upset he is living in a dying civilization. We have passed the "no going back" line.

Joseph W. • Jun 23, 2017 at 13:25

Re: Lightly worn allusion.

You may remember one of Florence King's old "Misanthrope's Corner" columns. She was at a bank, where a young employee was explaining why she couldn't do something or other she wanted to do. Having taken the hint, Ms. King replied, "Okay, I can see the writing on the wall." And the employee turned around to look for it...

Eric Sharf • Jun 23, 2017 at 13:21

F**ktards of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your lightly worn allusions! One of my last hopes is in the re-evanglization of the West by her former colonies. In the past 20 years, all but two of my parish priests were from India, Nigeria, or the Phillipines. Whatever remains of the Anglican communion that still believes in God is run from Africa. When London and Rome end up as the Temple Mount and Hagia Sophia, the glories of the West will become the glories of the South and the East.

Ray Cleveland • Jun 23, 2017 at 13:06

I don't think prospects would be as gloomy as Peter Smith suggests if the followers of Prophet Mo were our only concern.When you throw strident Islam on top of the nihilist worldview our present day elites practice, I believe doom has a probability of 1.Imagine an elite that didn't apologize for our legacy populations, imagine an elite that secured and protected its inherited traditions. We don't have that (maybe Poland & Hungary do). Instead we have cultural Marxists running things and defining allowable orthodoxies.I have never wished to be wrong about anything more in my life.

Wayne Lanham Ray Cleveland • Jun 24, 2017 at 08:14

You are definitely onto something here. The culture is dying regardless. Islam is just filling the vacuum. If it weren't Islam, it would be something else.

Tom • Jun 23, 2017 at 12:52

Just make sharia illegal and enforce it with summary deportation and that can be chain deportation if they've got dependence. That's the easiest macro solution. I know the present elites have no intention of doing this but it isn't as if it's impossible. Frankly can we call this what it is. It's ethnic cleansing. The worse elements of the elite (Western or otherwise) never tire of it. Just this time the Western ones have turned on the only group they haven't thus attacked and that's their own, the final solution to a cowards dilemma

If Waterloo was won at Eton then it was won in the small scale not the large scale. If macro solutions are not immediately available then avail yourselves of micro solutions.

Debra Milligan • Jun 23, 2017 at 12:51

Mr. Steyn,

The historical knowledge at this point has to be re-learned - which is not a bad thing considering how the knowledge has been all mucked up the "progressives"(why isn't the L word used anymore?). "You British intellectuals will be the death of us all," is the quintessential line from Hitchcock's 2nd version of "The Man Who Knew Too Much." The irony surely isn't lost there.

But the half-worker/half-slave society was the Nazi scheme that went bust. The EU exalts freedom while it strangles free anything, except the freedom of crazies to roam the asylum the Political Schleps created.

I'd not "heard" the word, douchebag, since my teens when I dated a boy who used the word constantly to describe everyone else around him. Pure projection. (Pun completely unintended! I am not fully awake â€” I do my best work before I wake up!)

Yes, indeed, the problem with the Modern World is there are no minor leagues, no training grounds. For opera, one had to go to Europe to prove talent and then return anywhere (usually America) a success. Now the person goes to the digital keyboard to live out delusions of grandeur, usually on Instagram/FB and the like. Since Trump is living out his destiny and using Twitter to blockade the twits trying to blockade his path to that destiny, their shrillness level is beyond fortissimo!

Mr. Boris Johnson is truly Modern Political Man: he's from the lower-middle-upper class. He relates. Likable guy and I wonder if he is waiting until Mrs. May finally retracts into her snail shell. She is not clinging to power as much as leaving the thickest slime trail in the history of any entitlement-elected "leader."

Michele Grzywacz • Jun 23, 2017 at 12:47

Dear Mr. Steyn,If I tire of you I have tired of life.
Sincerely,MG

Richard Byrne • Jun 23, 2017 at 12:45

In many ways, all seems hopeless. Islam has nearly achieved what it could not in past centuries, the take over of the West. My feeling is that the political will to stem and reverse the tide is not there, in Europe or the U.S. Only by a not too far off amassing of patriotic militias can anything be done. It must happen soon, otherwise Mark Steyn's theory that young people who have no idea of how things used to be won't care enough to bring it back, will occur. Let's hurry then!